Heath Ledger Covers Entertainment Weekly -- The Untold Story

On January 22—the anniver­sary of Heath Ledger’s passing—Hollywood will unveil this year’s Academy Award nominees, and Heath is consid­ered a lock to secure a posthumous Best Supporting Actor nod for his performance as the Joker in The Dark Knight.

A year after Heath Ledger‘s death, his closest friends finally open up to EW about his last days, life as a father to Matilda and fear of fame.

“I haven’t talked about it until now. I’m really nervous,” says actor Wes Bent­ley, one of Heath Ledger’s closest friends. They costarred in 2002’s The Four Feath­ers. “Heath’s fun clouded its way through a room,” says Wes. “It was infectious …Some people think he’d party too much and take drugs. That wasn’t the case. It was young energy. He was high off life.”

“Heath al­ways seemed so mature,” says 10 Things I Hate About You costar Julia Stiles. “I got the sense he was averse to becoming any kind of teen idol. I think he felt like 10 Things had more substance, but he anticipated that if he did more movies like this, he’d get stuck doing teen romantic comedies.”